


All Roses

by glim



Series: accidental valentine [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern: No Powers, M/M, Memories, Poetry, Sleepy Cuddles, Tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-25
Updated: 2018-02-25
Packaged: 2019-03-23 22:39:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13797816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glim/pseuds/glim
Summary: "Steven, that's the most pretentious tattoo I've ever seen."





	All Roses

**Author's Note:**

  * For [R00bs_Teacup](https://archiveofourown.org/users/R00bs_Teacup/gifts).



Bucky walks his fingers up the ladder of Steve's ribcage, counting each bone, precious and fragile, and traces the index finger on his left hand over the script that scrawls across Steve's skin. His shirt's rucked up over his stomach and his face is soft with sleep; he dozed off watching television, body stretched out along the length of Bucky's side and the living room sofa, and all Bucky wants to do keep him like this, half-asleep and loose-limbed. 

Steve stirs at the touch, murmurs something about the tv, and drifts off again when Bucky strokes his stomach. 

"It took you ten years to learn how to relax," Bucky murmurs and leans up to kiss Steve before he loses the moment. 

Steve hums this time, and he turns his face into Bucky's shoulder for a moment and shakes his head. He's more awake than asleep now, but Bucky can see how he clings to the warmth and pleasant blurriness of his afternoon nap, how his body remains lazy and warm, how he moves so easily into Bucky's touches and kisses. 

When Bucky's hand spans his ribcage again, Steve shifts and presses into the touch. A smile touches his lips, then curves them as Bucky nudges his shirt up higher to examine the words written on his skin. 

"Steven, that's the most pretentious tattoo I've ever seen." Bucky can't hold off the laugh that rises up in his throat at the confused smile he gets in reply from Steve. He'd dip his his head down to kiss those ridiculous words if it didn't mean abandoning the look on Steve's face. 

"It's Ronsard," Steve replies, sleepy quiet and hoarse. He blinks at Bucky, gives another of his absurd half-awake smiles, and closes his eyes as Bucky strokes his stomach. "From the _Amours_." 

"I know. I asked Google." Bucky's fingers find the curve of Steve's stomach, just below his navel, and the angle of his hip above the waist of his jeans. God, he loves him, he loves him more now than he ever could have ten or fifteen years ago, loves the feel of his skin and the way the years have changed him, loves the way Steve smiles now, so much more easily, so much softer. "Why?" 

Steve draws in a long breath through his nose, stretches his body long beneath Bucky's touch, and lets the breath out in a sigh. He glances down at his torso and runs his own hand over the tattoo. 

"I was twenty-three, finishing my MFA, and you... you'd just left. For the last time," Steve says in a soft voice, and closes his eyes, really fucking squeezes them shut against phantom tears, and then gives himself a shake. "You were gone, in Iraq, by yourself, and I was up in Rhode Island, by myself, and all I wanted to do was forget, but the only thing I couldn't do..." 

".. was _forget_ ," Bucky finishes for him and rests his hand atop Steve's. 

For a moment, Bucky gets lost in the warmth of Steve's body against his, in the sudden blue of Steve's eyes and how memory sharpens them. He loses himself in memories that are not just his own, but somehow shared across the miles and years between them, and he thinks he could lose himself in those moments. 

No, _no_ , for all that he wants to remember, he wants to forget some things, too. He wants an empty slate between them, just like he wants the newness of spring to arrive early this year, the clean rain and the scent of unfolding green leaves on the trees. 

He has a pattern of pain and memory etched into his skin, too, one he won't erase, one he wouldn't give up if given the chance, Bucky knows that. He doesn't want to give up his past for the future, and he doesn't the years to dwindle behind him, insignificant, but _god_ , if he could have this--

\--if he could have this moment forever, Steve, warm and sleepy and fond beneath his hands, and Steve, kissing him with his mouth careful and slow against Bucky's, and his hand, certain and strong at Bucky's hip, well, he might, he might trade his past for his future. 

"Hey," Steve says, and his eyes soften again when Bucky looks at him. He smiles, too, and kisses Bucky lightly on the lips. "Those days are done, now. You came home. You came home from the Army, and ... you came home to me, too." 

Steve's words fucking _bloom_ in Bucky's chest, sudden and springtime-fast, and he presses his mouth to Steve's in a kiss that takes no chances, that unfolds as sudden as those words and the feelings they inspire. 

There's a sob, too, at the back of Bucky's throat, that threatens to come out, but by the time Bucky breaks away from the kiss, it's just a sigh, long and slow, and he's a little shaky around the edges. Steve touches his hair, then strokes the few strands that slip from his hair tie to brush against Bucky's face and neck. He keeps on doing so until Bucky turns to press a kiss, and then a smile against the palm of Steve's hand. 

"What does it really mean, though? The poem?" Bucky nudges one of his legs between Steve's so he can get that much closer to Steve. 

"It's about art, and love," Steve murmurs. "And immortality. And memory." 

Bucky thinks for a few moments, of Steve doing his graduate work up at RISD while he was out in the desert, wondering if he'd come home. He thinks about that time like he hasn't before, only as a moment, flickering and then fading, as a memory, not a premonition, not a definition of any future moment. 

"It's still the most fucking pretentious tattoo I've ever seen."

* * * 

When Steve arrives at his office on Tuesday morning, coffee in one hand and the bitter chill of the early spring morning clinging to his clothes, he finds the room a riot of colors, petals scattered haphazard across the floor.

On his desk, next to the vase, is a notecard, heavy cream-colored paper with four words written in neat, slanted penmanship: 

_« ne soit que roses »_

**Author's Note:**

> [Comme on voit sur la branche](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse?contentId=26576), Ronsard.
> 
> (Another title apology--I'm just as pretentious as Steve...)


End file.
